WA dad jailed for abusing friend's child

A father who sexually abused a friend's six-year-old daughter in a bed, during a bath and while playing computer games has been jailed in Western Australia for six years.

Steven John Heinz, 31, pleaded guilty to several charges committed between August and October 2016 including sexual penetration of a child, indecent dealing with a child, indecently recording a child and possessing child pornography.

In a victim impact statement submitted to the WA District Court, the girl's mother said she had become very clingy and withdrawn, lacked confidence, and had fallen behind at school.

"(She) is not the happy child that she used to be," Judge Wendy Gillan said.

She noted the mother's mental health had also suffered.

Judge Gillan described the thousands of images and videos of child pornography as vile and degrading.

The court heard Heinz suffered from a degenerative bone disease, which led him to become reliant on alcohol and pain medications, then illicit drugs.